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The Baikonur Cosmodrome

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Until today I didn't know that the USSR had an operational Space Shuttle.

A link from Wikipedia brought me to https://ralphmirebs.livejournal.com/219949.html

These photo's show two decaying shuttles (tip: use the browsers 'translate' function) but can't help but think that these craft could be preserved somehow.

There was a craft called Buran that did an unmanned space flight but I don't know if these two flew.

 Jon Greengrass 07 May 2019
In reply to Phantom Disliker:

They kind of are preserved by being in a desert. This blog post explains how difficult the hanger is to access,

https://www.urbextour.com/en/space-jam-pizdetz-Baikonur/

the photos they took are not quite as amazing as the link you posted, they got arrested by the Russian army before they could get inside the shuttles.

cb294 07 May 2019
In reply to Phantom Disliker:

No need to go to Kazakhstan, the Technik Museum Speyer, Germany has an original Buran from 1984 on exhibit that was used for atmospheric flights. 

CB

In reply to cb294:

This is how I learnt about the existence of the shuttle program! A mate has just returned from Speyer - he regularly goes on drinking jaunts in Europe but this time returned with snaps of a space shuttle!

 Pefa 07 May 2019
In reply to Phantom Disliker:

Sigh! The good old days. 

 Yanis Nayu 07 May 2019
In reply to Phantom Disliker:

One of those space shuttles was displayed in Gorky Park when I was in Moscow in 2012. 

 Stichtplate 07 May 2019
In reply to Pefa:

> Sigh! The good old days. 

The good old days of Soviet retro-engineering of Western tech?

https://io9.gizmodo.com/incredible-soviet-rip-offs-of-western-technologies-...

...and they don't even mention Concordski!

Edit: talking of Soviet tech, just finished the first episode of Chernobyl. Properly harrowing.

Post edited at 21:59
 wintertree 07 May 2019
In reply to Phantom Disliker:

Yup, and it has a very similar re-entry approach to the US shuttle.  Which is a shame, because it’s a bad profile that involves far to much Peak heat generation and so needs over complex thermal protection.  If only they’d done more espionage on the British designs for Mustard and HOTOL...

Deadeye 08 May 2019
In reply to wintertree:

> Yup, and it has a very similar re-entry approach to the US shuttle.  Which is a shame, because it’s a bad profile that involves far to much Peak heat generation and so needs over complex thermal protection. 

Hahahaha. I think NASA probably know more about this and their design constraints than you! Armchair rocket science expert too, eh?

😉

cb294 08 May 2019
In reply to Stichtplate:

You mean the Tupolev 144 that had its maiden flight the year before Concorde?

CB

 wintertree 08 May 2019
In reply to Deadeye:

> Hahahaha. I think NASA probably know more about this and their design constraints than you! Armchair rocket science expert too, eh?

My comment is based on something Alan Bond said about their work in the UK on re-entery profiles 40 years ago;  nobody in the states believed them then but they claim now to have had it extensively validated in simulation by Airbus.   I’ve been looking for the interview with him to post a link but haven’t found it yet.  

The Americans are now all about Alan Bond and co’s work now it’s apparent they can’t crack controllable hypersonic engines and the UK can.  It’s disappointing to me that it’s taken the US to progress the reaction engines Skylon project but my childhood dream of seeing a British air breathing space plane is at least limping on with some stars and stripes on it.

Happy to be an armchair critic of the space shuttle.  20x more expensive than the alternatives and something like 10x the fatality rate.   It’s clear that a series of very bad design choices led to something so far from the right path.  Aside from Alan Bond’s claims, it’s 25 years since the McDonnel Douglass DC-X demonstrated the potential of VTVL rocketry.  

PS I do actually do some rocket science; more on the theoretical side until technology catches up though.  It’s a toy side project but everyone needs a hobby and it’s cool to talk interstellar rocketry with a senior NASA person.

Post edited at 09:34
 wintertree 08 May 2019
In reply to Stichtplate:

> ...and they don't even mention Concordski! 

The Americans spent some time flying an instrumented Concordski as part of a NASA project to gather data for American supersonic passenger jet development.

A bit rich I thought at the time to first make life difficult for Concorde due to not invented here syndrome and then to study the hell out of the Soviet rip off.  I don’t know how much data from that program ended up in the new raft of supersonic business jet designs and prototypes coming out of the USA.  Google “NASA Tu-144LL” for more.

A bit of a jingoistic and naive view of mine there for sure!

Post edited at 09:49
Deadeye 08 May 2019
In reply to wintertree:

Lol . Of course.

1
 wintertree 08 May 2019
In reply to Deadeye:

> Lol . Of course.

Lol dudze.  L8rs.

Removed User 08 May 2019
In reply to Phantom Disliker:

Eric Brown wrote a book about the Miles Aircraft company's research into breaking the sound barrier, He was highly critical that the then labour government gave all the data to the USA which then gave them the  opportunity to develop the high tail plane (Bell X1) to reduce oscillation's on the edge of  Mack 1.   The scale model's ( I think Miles 152? ) in the wind tunnel showed great promise.  Cannot remember the book's name.  Capt Eric Brown has a few world records to his name.

1st Bomber landing on an aircraft carrier  (mosquito)   and take off

1st Jet landing on an aircraft carrier      Vanpire    ( watch that on u-tube) he was told to abort due to sea state

487 different planes types flown

World records for deck landing's  2400+ and take off's  mostly in combat but also helping the USA  develop the angle deck carrier's   

His book Wings on my Sleeve is a great read  

 Ridge 08 May 2019
In reply to cb294:

> You mean the Tupolev 144 that had its maiden flight the year before Concorde?

Amazing what can be done with a bit of industrial espionage, isn't it

cb294 08 May 2019
In reply to Ridge:

Build a Concorde?

CB

 jkarran 08 May 2019
In reply to wintertree:

> Happy to be an armchair critic of the space shuttle.  20x more expensive than the alternatives and something like 10x the fatality rate.   It’s clear that a series of very bad design choices led to something so far from the right path.

Wasn't the shuttle conceived as a standalone fully re-usable vehicle originally until it became clear an external tank would be needed then that the engines were inadequate so the solid boosters were added. A series of bodges that should have lead back to the drawing board rather than the launchpad.

Amazing how much damage just a few decades do but what an incredible building!

jk

 Stichtplate 08 May 2019
In reply to cb294:

> You mean the Tupolev 144 that had its maiden flight the year before Concorde?

> CB

The year before? Is that a more impressive way of stating the more accurate “two months before”?

Removed User 08 May 2019
In reply to Stichtplate:

Found it from Wings on my Sleeve

While all this frantic search after the Holy Grail of supersonic speed was going on,  a Mosquito aircraft from RAE took a radio-controlled, rocket-powered model of the Miles M52 in its bomb bay up to 36.400 feet over the Scilly Isles, where it was dropped on the 10th  October 1948 and achieved a Mack number of 1.38 in level flight.   This underlined what a fantastic opportunity had been missed by the earlier cancellation of the full-scale M-52.    Britain could have- and should have- been the first nation to break the sound barrier in manned flight.

Not counting the manned V1 & V2 programs in Germany!!!!!!

 aln 08 May 2019
In reply to Phantom Disliker:

Great thread, really interesting. Thanks.

1
 wercat 09 May 2019
In reply to Deadeye:

Strangely the prospects of BAe going ahead on HOTOL were mentioned at a couple of successful job interviews I had in the late 90s.   You don't have to know much about rocket science to know the intrinsic dangers of the Shuttle program.   They were recognised before the 1980s as the concept became solid engineering

Post edited at 21:18
 aln 09 May 2019
In reply to aln:

> Great thread, really interesting. Thanks.

A dislike for this. Proof if it's needed that there are dislike stalkers on this forum.

 wercat 10 May 2019
In reply to wercat:

that should have been the late 1980s!

 wercat 10 May 2019
In reply to jkarran:

IIRC the requirements were subject to change because of pressure from Military users so payload had to increase and so the design "evolved"


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